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Finding a Career Mentor

Clear goals for what you want from a mentor, a shortlist and a first approach that gets a yes, well-run sessions, advice turned into action, and relationships that last beyond the first few meetings.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Finding a Career Mentor, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

201

Starter tasks

🧭 Career Growth

Finding a Career Mentor

Finding mentors, structuring mentoring conversations and acting on their advice to accelerate career decisions.

  1. What you want from a mentor right now
  2. Choosing between a mentor, coach or sponsor
  3. Mapping your network for mentor candidates
  4. Ideal mentor profile and selection criteria
  5. Two-minute introduction for mentoring requests
  6. Your employer's mentoring programme check
  7. Realistic time budget for being mentored
  8. Mentor contact and session notes system
  9. Shortlist of five prospective mentors
  10. First approach message to a prospective mentor
  11. Weekly mentor outreach pipeline
  12. Pre-session agenda routine
  13. Action log from mentoring advice
  14. Monthly progress note to your mentors
  15. Quarterly mentoring relationship check
  16. Giving back to your mentors
  17. Annual mentoring review and reset
  18. Asking sharper questions in mentoring sessions
  19. Framing a career dilemma for a mentor
  20. Taking hard feedback from a mentor
  21. Weighing conflicting advice from different mentors
  22. Twenty-minute advice calls with people you do not know
  23. Learning from distant mentors through their work
  24. Making remote mentoring work over video and messages
  25. Mentoring agreement for goals, rhythm and confidentiality
  26. Three-session trial with a new mentor
  27. Re-engaging a mentor who has gone quiet
  28. Ending or pausing a mentoring relationship well
  29. Applying to an external structured mentoring scheme
  30. Paid mentoring platforms versus free routes
  31. Peer mentoring circle with colleagues at your level
  32. Reverse mentoring with a younger colleague
  33. First meeting with a new mentor
  34. Mentor matching event or speed mentoring session
  35. Six-month retrospective with your mentor
  36. Mentor input before a major career decision
  37. Final session of a formal mentoring programme
  38. Alumni mentoring through your university or college
  39. Turning a lecturer or supervisor into a mentor
  40. Finding a mentor as a school leaver or apprentice
  41. Mentor in a field you want to move into
  42. Mentoring as a first-generation professional
  43. Mentoring with little spare time as a parent or carer
  44. Finding mentors when self-employed or in a very small firm
  45. Mentors in a small-market or island industry
  46. Personal board of advisers
  47. Craft mentoring on your actual work
  48. Keeping mentors after you change employer
  49. Taking on your first mentee
  50. Two-year review of what mentoring has changed

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

What you want from a mentor right now

Asking someone to be your mentor without saying what for puts all the work on them, and most busy people quietly decline. Writing down the two or three career questions you are actually stuck on, such as whether to specialise, how to get your first management role or which master's to take, tells you what kind of mentor to look for and gives them a reason to say yes.

First tasks

  • List every career question that has kept you awake in the last six months
  • Cut the list to the three that matter most this year
  • Mark each as a decision, a skill or a door to open
  • Choose the one question your first mentor should help with
  • Reread your mentoring questions and update them @recurring(quarterly)

Choosing between a mentor, coach or sponsor

People often ask for a mentor when what they need is a coach to help them think, a sponsor to put their name forward or simply a manager who does their job. Sorting your questions into those three buckets saves you from asking a mentor for something they cannot give, and points the rest of your effort in the right direction.

First tasks

  • Write one line each on what a mentor, a coach and a sponsor do
  • Sort your three career questions into those buckets
  • Move any manager questions to your next one-to-one agenda
  • Record whether a mentor is your right next step and why

Mapping your network for mentor candidates

Most good mentors are found one step away from people you already know, not through cold messages to famous names. Listing former managers, lecturers, colleagues in other teams, alumni, family friends and professional body members, then asking who each of them knows, usually produces ten or more realistic names in an afternoon.

First tasks

  • List 30 people you know across work, study, community and family
  • Mark everyone with experience close to your focus question
  • Mark five people who could introduce you to someone further ahead
  • Search your professional networking profile for second-degree contacts in your target field

Make it yours.

Install Finding a Career Mentor, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.